


Press My Face Against the Clouds

by Jiksa



Series: Polar Bear 'Verse [1]
Category: BBC Radio 1 RPF, One Direction (Band)
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Cabin Fic, Idiots in Love, M/M, Misunderstandings, Norway (Country), Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-25
Updated: 2017-03-25
Packaged: 2018-10-08 14:53:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10389273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jiksa/pseuds/Jiksa
Summary: Norway has a polar bear population, Nick has a broken heart, and Louis Tomlinson is, unsurprisingly, still a complete fucking wanker.





	

**Author's Note:**

> For the "bed sharing" square of my bandom bingo card... even if it isn't quite bandom. Immense thanks, as always, to [LadySmutterella](archiveofourown.org/users/ladysmutterella)/[immoral_crow](archiveofourown.org/users/immoral_crow) for beta reading, britpicking and excitement about polar bears. 
> 
> Harry named Norway as one of his favorite places in the world once. I'm not necessarily sure how that led to this. *jazz hands*

When he finally makes it to Northern Norway after a disorienting day of travel, Nick is:  
1) Exhausted  
2) Cranky af  
3) Not convinced that he’s still in Europe despite the in-flight magazine’s claims to the contrary, and  
4) Suspecting he might’ve been better off spending the week curled up on his own sofa, spooning a bottle of Jameson’s and weeping into his dog’s fur.

Whiskey may not be the most sensible cure for a broken heart, but at least it would have beaten freezing his nads off at the literal fucking end of the world. The sky is pitch black overhead — to be expected, apparently, with the next glimpse of sunlight expected in about two months. _POLAR NIGHTS MOTHERFUCKER_ , Harry’s email had enthused, _sun literally doesn’t rise from november to february and it’s perfect conditions for seeing the northern lights and we are going to pet reindeer and ride reindeer and EAT reindeer and grimmy I swear to god this girl is so fucking amazing i can’t wait for you to meet her PLEASE TELL ME YOU’RE COMING COME ON PACK A BAG RIGHT NOW._

When he’d zipped his suitcase shut last night, he’d resigned himself to the following:  
1) Fresh air might actually do him more good than getting day drunk alone in his flat  
2) The risk of drunk dialling Elliott and begging him to take Nick back was inexcusably high  
3) He does look particularly dapper in a beanie  
4) The Arctic Circle can’t possibly be _that_ far away.

And now that he’s made it here, to the literal ends of the Earth, where polar bears are likely to disembowel him at any moment, he’d like to reconsider his entire decision making process. The car Harry sent for him has been driving blindly through heavy snowfall for almost thirty minutes, gliding past barely populated wilderness while the driver keeps a running commentary of all the things that are allegedly better in Norway than anywhere else in the world. So far the list includes, but is not limited to: healthcare, education, prisons, female representation in government, cheese, recycling, democracy, tunnels and barbecues. It’s been a long drive.

Harry’s waiting for him outside the cabin when Nick pulls up, wearing fifteen layers of clothing, some sort of fur-lined headgear and a shit-eating grin. His breath hangs in the air when he calls out, cloudy like a mouthful of smoke. “Lovely, isn’t it?”

Nick shoulders his satchel and does his best to drag his suitcase behind him, despite the twenty inches of snow underfoot. “Already lost feeling in my toes, mate.”

Harry treks through the snow to throw his arms around him and knock Nick’s bag off his shoulder. His cheek is warm against Nick’s. “I’m so chuffed you made it. Fuck that asshole, yeah? Let’s have a brilliant time.”

Nick sighs, letting himself be wrapped up and letting his bag fall to the ground. There’s no point resisting Harry, not when his hugs are as good as they are and Nick’s this knackered. “Yeah. Fuck him.”

Harry pulls back and pats his arm, his eyes smiling. “Come inside, everyone else is already here.”

Nick’s a little fuzzy on who _everyone else_ is exactly, but he’s met enough of Harry’s friends and family over the years to know he’ll get along just fine with whoever’s around. It’s cosy warm when they step inside, the fireplace crackling and frying pans sizzling in the kitchen. Something slow and sweet in another language is playing on the stereo.

“Hiya everybody,” he calls, waving as he peels off his outer layers. He recognises most people in the room: Liam and his girlfriend playing Jenga on the coffee table, Niall’s cousin Deo cuddled up on the sofa with a childhood friend of Harry’s whose name escapes Nick (Allie? Alice? Anna?). Perrie waves an excited spatula at him from the kitchen, grinning from ear to ear. “Or, as the locals say, _skål_.”

“Pretty sure that means ‘cheers,’” says a girl Nick recognises from selfies Harry’s uploaded to their never-ending Whatsapp chat. She’s even cuter in person, her English accented with what Nick’s learned to identify as Norwegian on his long and arduous travels today. Her hair is in long, blonde braids on either side of her head. “Harry talks about you all the time. I’m Ingebjørg, it’s so nice to finally meet you.”

“Ah yes,” Nick concedes, leaning in to give her a hug. Her hugs are solid like Harry’s; Nick likes her already. “I was hoping to subconsciously influence someone to get me a glass of wine. Lovely to meet you, too.”

“I’ll get you one,” Harry says, leaning in to kiss her temple as he passes them. “You need a top-up, love?”

She shakes her head, smiling up at him like he hung the moon. Oh, young love. Nick’s mostly happy for them and only slightly nauseated by it all. “I can already tell I’m going to totally bugger up your name.”

“Call me Iggy.” She laughs sweetly. “And I hope you’re hungry, we're having Norwegian tacos for dinner.”

Nick didn’t know that was a thing, but sure. “Let me just put my things away and wash off the airport grime.” He gathers up his bags. “Would you mind pointing out my room?”

Harry’s face when he comes back with Nick’s wine glass is, well, a cause for concern. “ _Oh._ Yeah, about that.”

Nick frowns a little as Harry hesitates, and then as if on cue, Louis fucking Tomlinson emerges from one of the doors down the hallway to Nick’s left. He’s wearing low-slung track pants and a shapeless jumper in the middle of nowhere, and yet his hair still looks like it’s been professionally styled. Wanker. Nick hadn’t quite expected to see him here, but then again, he hadn’t thought to ask. If the thinning of his lips and furrow in his brow are anything to go by, Louis seems equally surprised (and, arguably, displeased) to see him. “Grimshaw.”

Nick’s heart clenches in his chest. Christ, this is utterly _inconvenient_. “Tomlinson.” He turns back to Harry. “Sorry, which one’s my room?”

“About that,” Harry repeats, glancing between him and Louis. He runs a hand through his unruly curls. “So, um. We accidentally mucked up the sleeping arrangements.”

Louis plucks Nick’s wine glass out of Harry’s hand and has a gulp of it, making a face when it goes down. Christ, he doesn’t even drink wine. Nick only wants to stab him a little. “What are you on about, Styles?”

“Sorry,” Nick says again, already out of patience with Louis. He needs a few minutes to chill out before he can muster enough energy to coexist peacefully with him. “Where am I staying?”

Harry doesn’t say anything, but that wincing smile says about all Nick needs to hear.

“Oh fuck no,” Louis snaps. He finishes the rest of Nick’s wine in one go. Nick’s desire to stab him escalates exponentially.

Nick sighs. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

 

—

 

Nick surveys the disaster zone of their inconveniently shared bedroom like one might survey mold in a petri dish. It’s not that far off; the sheets are rumpled, Louis’s clothes are _everywhere_ and there’s three half-eaten bags of crisps and sweets open in the bed. “What the fuck even, Lou?”

“Fuck right off,” Louis supplies sweetly. He’s wrapped his arms over his chest and leaned back against the closed door like a petulant child. “It’s not like anyone told me you were coming.”

Nick sighs, choosing to pick his battles. He’s here for another three nights and he doesn’t want to accidentally kill Louis before he’s even discovered what the hell a Norwegian taco is. He goes around to drop his things by the right side of the bed, assuming Louis still favours the left. “Let’s just make the best of it, okay? You can pretend I’m invisible, if you like. You’ve always been good at that.”

There’s a beat where Nick’s expecting him to get bitchy, but thankfully he doesn’t. “Fine.”

Nick starts grabbing clothes off the floor and tossing them Louis’s way. He’s drawn an imaginary line between his and Louis’s sides of the room, going straight down the middle of the bed. Maybe he’ll prop some pillows up between them. He peels a pair of pants off of the lampshade on his nightstand. They’re soft and worn to to the touch. Dirty, then. “Well, this is lovely.”

“Get your sodding hands off my pants, Grimshaw.”

Nick meets his eyes. “That’s a first, from you.”

Louis flushes a shame-dark shade of crimson, but he doesn’t look away. “Shut up. We are not talking about that.”

Damn right, they aren’t. Nick flicks his pants at him. “Wasn’t going to say a word.”

“I have a girlfriend now.”

Nick rolls his eyes and starts rifling through his backpack for his phone charger. Not that he has cell phone coverage, but at least he can play candy crush and take pictures for his Instagram and play tunes on his Spotify. “You seem to be under the mistaken impression that I give a shit either way.”

There’s a sharp intake of breath from Louis, and Nick braces himself for whatever elaborate, insulting, bitchy comeback is about to come his way. But Louis just succinctly mutters, “Twat,” and then he slams the door behind him.

So that goes about as well as could be expected.

 

—

 

They all get _gloriously_ drunk after dinner.

Niall and Bressie introduce them to local specialties acquired from the nearest town this morning. “At the _wine monopoly,”_ Niall keeps repeating, incredulous. “You can only buy alcohol stronger than 5% at this government-owned off licence called the _wine monopoly_ and it’s only open between 11am and 2pm. Closed on Mondays, Thursdays and Sundays. This place is mad. How do people live like this?”

Niall turns expectantly to Iggy for answers, but she shrugs in what Nick can only assume is weary acceptance of her country’s few limitations and takes another shot of some wretched alcohol that’s been distilled while traveling across the world on a ship for a year.

Liam keeps an eye on the Aurora Borealis Forecast app on his phone, occasionally calling out updates on cloud cover and weather patterns and solar activity. His girlfriend ducks out every now and then to check for Northern Lights, but she looks less hopeful everytime she comes back inside. Nick’s not convinced anything could entice him to leave the warm cottage for the frozen outdoors at this point, natural miracles be damned.

A harmless game of charades turn into a hilarious game of dirty charades, which in turn leads into truth or dare and then never-have-I-ever. After Zayn dares Harry to snog the prettiest girl in the room, he and Iggy rapidly excuse themselves to “lie down for a little while.” Nick’s willing to put actual cash money on Harry being two fingers deep in her already.

He succeeds at staying out of Louis’s way for the majority of the night, but then Perrie and Zayn call it a night, and Niall says, “Never have I ever snogged a bloke.” He drinks of course, as does everyone else still standing: Liam, Sophia, Niall, Bressie, Niall’s cousin and Harry’s childhood friend. Everyone _except_ Louis.

Nick can’t help himself; he snorts so hard red wine comes up his nose. “For fuck’s sake,” he laughs, coughing against the burn. “Ow, ow, ow.”

Louis turns a warning glare on him.

Nick clears his throat, belatedly getting a grip on himself. “Sorry.”

“Bressie,” Louis says coldly, moving on without fanfare. “You’re up.”

Nick can’t look away from Louis’s’ pink cheeks. He wonders how much Liam or Niall know, how much Louis has told any of his band about whatever the fuck he was doing with Nick last summer. Harry walked in on them in a back alley once, on Louis sucking a bruise into Nick’s collarbone while Nick’s fists clenched in his hair. He’d gone back inside the pub when Nick had shaken his head, and they hadn’t talked about it the next day or anytime since. Nick never told Louis what Harry saw, but it’s not like the two of them ever did all that much talking anyway.

Bressie hmmms for a long time, trying to think of something scandalous enough to get them all drunker. He’s wrapped around Niall, broad and wide against Niall’s slight frame. Nick’s never seen them together before, but he gets it now. They work.

He and Elliott worked like that, until they didn’t. It’s the first time he’s thought about him all night, the reminder that he didn't want Nick like Nick wanted him cruel and sobering. He gets himself off the floor, staggering into an upright position. “Gonna turn in, I think.”

“Mate,” Bressie calls. “I was about to drop a never-have-I-ever-pole-danced.”

Nick raises his glass in toast and takes a final sip of his wine. “I was dead good at it, too. Night, everybody.”

 

—

 

Louis is quiet when he comes to bed, but Nick hasn't been able to sleep yet. His back is turned to him but he listens to Louis take his clothes off and put on his pyjamas, plug his phone into the charger by the bed, take out his contacts. All these things he never got to witness when they were doing whatever it was that they did last year. Louis had always left Nick’s long before the booze wore off and the sun rose. He’d never let Nick come back to his own flat.

And then there was that time that Nick had asked him on an actual, serious, sit-down dinner date and Louis had burst out laughing. “What, like I’m going to risk being seen in public with you?” Louis had hissed over the phone. “You’re proper delusional if you think I want to actually date you.” Then he’d hung up and fucked off on tour, and that had been that.

Louis lets out a long, satisfied exhale when he finally rolls onto his back and pulls the covers over himself. It sounds too much like the sound he used to make after he’d come, when he was pliant and sticky and fucked out and let Nick kiss him like it could ever mean anything between them.

Nick almost turns around, almost apologises for earlier, almost offers a truce. Almost.

 

—

 

They take three cars to visit the reindeer farm, massive four wheel drives with spacious back seats and studded tyres. The problem with travelling with five couples though, Nick realises rather belatedly, is that they all pair up in separate cars. Niall, Bressie, Deo and Alice in one; Zayn, Perrie, Liam and Sophia in the second. In the end, the only space left for him is in the back of Harry and Iggy’s car, beside Louis.

Louis, who’s looking out of the window and refuses to acknowledge Nick when he climbs in beside him. Twat.

“You’re gonna love this band,” Harry says, grinning at him in the rear view mirror as he hooks his phone up on Bluetooth. “Iggy put me onto them, they’re sick.”

The inexplicably named Donkeyboy sings, _I can’t tolerate the feelings that I feel when I feel_ , while the car makes its way through what Nick assumes are fjords. It’s still pitch black overhead, but the snow makes everything glow bright white around them, strange and otherworldly.

Harry’s fingers are linked with Iggy’s on the handbrake between them; they speak so softly to each other that Nick can’t hear them over the music. He tries not to think about how Elliott had said, “It’s just not working out, yeah? I just don’t think I feel enough for you.” It makes him feel like shit. There’s a reason he’s never really done boyfriends: he gets too involved and then they fuck off.

Louis doesn’t say a word to him.

 

—

 

That night, Liam’s apps are promising intense solar activity and clear skies and a high chance of Northern Lights. He insists that they all take shifts uselessly standing outside and observing the sky while exactly nothing happens. The sky is as black as it’s been since Nick landed.

He stands outside with Iggy, wearing every item of clothing in his suitcase while the ground glitters like stars around them. His glass of red has gone ice cold, his fingers shaking around the cigarette he’s shivering too hard to really enjoy.

“My grandmother used to tell me the Lights were divine,” Iggy says dreamily, her head tilted towards the sky. There’s a mottled bruise in the shape of Harry’s mouth tucked under her ear. “That when the border between Heaven and Earth becomes too thin, you can see the lights of Heaven in the sky.”

Nick sniffles, rubbing his frozen nose. He needs a paper tissue. “I don’t know if I believe in Heaven, to be honest.”

She smiles at him. “Me neither.”

Harry does, though. Nick wonders if she knows, if Harry’s unpeeled those layers of himself with her yet. Nick’s never had the balls to show too much of himself to anyone he’s ever fucked. He thought Elliott might be the person to change that for him. It had been an exciting thought, even if Elliott himself hadn’t actually been all that exciting.

Iggy bumps her shoulder against his. He offers her his cigarette, but she shakes her head and glances back at the cabin, before asking, “Are you okay?”

Nick frowns, following her gaze. He can’t see anything beyond lights in the windows and smoke coming from the chimney. He wonders what Harry’s told her, what Harry even knows. “Yeah, fine. Why?”

“Harry told me about the man in London. I’m really sorry.”

Ah, right. The guy he just broke up with. “It’s fine. He was a tosser.”

She laughs. “A what?”

“A dick.”

He wasn’t, really. He was kind and sensible and had Opinions on current affairs and made bread from scratch and gave money to charity. He held Nick’s hand in the street and made Nick think he could have a proper good thing with someone who _actually_ wanted him back. Nick had madly suggested Elliott come ‘round to Oldham to _meet his parents_ , about two minutes before Elliott had decided he maybe didn’t like him all that much, after all. That particular humiliation is not a thing Nick is going to forgive anytime soon.

Snow crunching behind them startles Nick out of his reverie. It’s Louis, bent over a cigarette and a flickering flame. Speaking of people who don’t like him very much.

“Shift change,” he says once he’s reached them, taking a deep drag of his fag. “Harry’s trying to teach Liam some key Norwegian phrases. Frankly, it sounds like he’s having a seizure.”

Iggy laughs, turning on her heel. “You coming, Nick?”

Nick flashes his cigarette. It’s nearly burnt down to the filter. “In a minute.”

Louis smokes quietly as he looks up at the night sky. Everything is so still, constellations above them and snow like fallen stars all around them. Just the two of them under a night sky at the end of the world; it feels as good a time as any to have one of the many conversations they never got around to before.

“So where’s your girlfriend?” Nick asks, instead of anything he actually wants to say. “Not keen on the Great North?”

“Had to work,” Louis mutters, hugging himself against the chill and staring resolutely overhead. “Where’s your boyfriend?”

Nick’s so fucking cold. He should go inside. He needs to blow his nose and stand in front of the fireplace for about thirty minutes until he can feel his toes and bollocks again. He lights another cigarette instead, his fingers shaking and his fingernails aching oddly. “Don’t have one, anymore.”

Louis looks at him, his eyes unreadable in the dark. Nick doesn’t know what to do with any of it. “I’m sorry,” he says eventually. “Haz made it sound like you had a good thing going.”

The chill in the air burns his nose, hurts his throat. “Not good enough, I suppose.”

Nick puts out his cigarette when he hears the front door open. He glances back to see Perrie waddling up towards them, wearing what looks like three coats on top of each other. “Have a good shift,” he says, before heading back.

 

—

 

They don’t see the Lights that night. They get less drunk than the night before, though only barely. Iggy sits on the sofa with Harry on the floor between her legs, his head resting against the inside of her knee while she strokes his hair. Niall leads singalongs on guitar, Zayn pours hot chocolate into mugs and Sophia snores a little when she falls asleep against Liam’s side.

Nick goes to bed early, Louis not far behind. Nick lies on his side, eyes open as Louis strips off his shirt and takes out his contacts and peels his socks off. “Stop looking,” Louis grumbles after a while. “Creepy.”

Nick’s fuzzy drunk and sleepy slow and seems to have momentarily forgotten that he’s still cross with Louis. He doesn’t look away. “Sorry.”

There’s a girl moaning softly on the other side of the wall by his head; Perrie, if Nick’s not mistaken. He’s sure she’d be horrified if she knew how thin the walls were, but if the slow, building cadence of her voice is any indication, she’s in the middle of something it would be rude to interrupt.

Louis sighs contentedly as he lies down, throwing an arm over his head and closing his eyes. It takes everything in Nick not to reach for him, not to skim his fingers under the hem of his T-shirt to feel where the hair on his stomach leads up to his belly button. Louis Tomlinson is an utter fucking twat, for god’s sakes. He has a girlfriend he’s not embarrassed to be seen with in public. He’s also made it abundantly clear he’d never wanted Nick like Nick wanted him.

Fuck, Nick is stupid and heartbroken and drunk and so, so sick of not being wanted. “You haven’t told anyone, have you?”

Louis cocks an eye open. “Sorry?”

“You know what I’m talking about.”

“I literally never know what you’re talking about.”

“You and me.”

Louis covers his eyes, pressing the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. “Fuck, Nick. There is no you and me, never has been.”

Nick, again. It was always Nick with him before, never Grim or Grimmy or Grimshaw. It feels like pressing down on a bruise, but Nick can’t help himself. “You know what I mean.”

“I have a girlfriend,” Louis repeats, as though that’s any kind of answer at all. His voice is muffled by his hands. “It’s no one’s business if we shagged once or twice.”

Nick reaches across to peel his hands off his face. He knows Louis’s ashamed, that much was abundantly clear by how desperately he wanted it and how quickly he bolted after every time Nick gave it to him. “It wasn’t just once or twice.”

Louis shoves Nick’s hands off of him, his mouth twisting into something unkind. “Knock it off,” he growls. “Don’t touch me like that.”

Perrie’s voice builds to a soft, strangled crescendo on the other side of the wall, followed by Zayn’s laughter, happy and fond. Louis’s lip is bitten between his teeth, his brow furrowed. He looks angry. He looks lost.

Nick rolls onto his side, turning his back to him. “Night.”

 

—

 

The next day they pile into cars to go whale watching. Niall, Bressie, Deo and Alice in one; Zayn, Perrie, Liam and Sophia in the second. Iggy takes the steering wheel of the third, Harry putting his socked feet up on the dashboard and queuing up more songs he thinks Nick would like.

Louis had still been asleep when Nick got up that morning and he still hadn’t gotten up by the time they were cleaning up after breakfast. Nick watched Sophia and Perrie build a snowman while everyone else got ready, calling out helpful suggestions from the sidelines as he nursed his cup of hot chocolate.

Louis still hasn’t made an appearance by the time the cars start peeling off, and Nick says, “No Louis?”

Harry turns around to meet his eyes, a strange twist of his mouth. “Nah,” he murmurs. “Not feeling well, I don’t think.”

“But whales,” Nick says weakly, even though he doesn’t really care about marine creatures of any kind. He’s just tagging along because he was promised he could sit safely inside the boat and eat reindeer jerky and drink coffee with pieces of cheese inside the cup. He wonders if he should go back inside the cabin and apologise to Louis for last night, for taking things too far and backing him into a corner.

“Nah,” Harry says again, his voice gentle like Nick’s the one who needs to be soothed. “Just leave him, I think he’s just having a moody one.”

Nick wonders what Harry knows, what Louis’s told him, what he’s inferred from Nick’s silence. More than Nick originally thought he did, he guesses. 

Harry holds his gaze like he’s about to say something, but Nick can't let him. “It's fine, Haz,” he says. “We’re being civil towards each other.”

Harry doesn't quite look like he believes him, but he nods and turns back to face the front anyway. 

Aurora sings, _I went too far when I was begging on my knees_ and Nick swallows around the lump in his throat as they drive to the coast.

 

—

 

The fireplace is lit when they come back to the cabin, all collectively sea sick and windblown and tired. Liam says more things about solar flares and electrical storms and probability of seeing the lights, but Nick needs a hot shower and a bit of a lie down.

Louis calls a greeting from the kitchen, where he’s seemingly started on dinner, judging by the intense smell of burnt food permeating the cabin. Bressie and Alice head to the rescue while Sophia opens windows to air the place out.

Nick hums to himself while he showers, leaning one forearm against the glass and reaching down to take himself in hand. He hasn’t really felt much like getting off since Elliott dumped him and he hasn’t had the chance to while he’s been inconveniently sharing a bed with Louis. It feels nice, he supposes, even if he just can’t quite get there.

Back in his bedroom, he has to acrobatically maneuver his way around the piles of crap Louis has irritatingly scattered all over the floor. He changes into sweatpants and curls up to his pillow, letting sleep drag him under. When his alarm brings him back forty minutes later, he’s surprised to realise he’s hard again. It’s still so dark outside; there’s music and conversation coming from elsewhere in the cabin, but it all feels so far away. It smells like Louis all around him, like his cologne and his hair and his sweat. He leans into it, pushing his trackies down just enough to free his cock and turning his head so he can nuzzle into the side of Louis’s pillow.

It’s better this time, pleasure building low in his belly and making him sweat. He digs his heels into the mattress, reaching down to press against his hole. He squeezes his eyes shut and fists his dick, pressing the pad of his middle finger just inside himself. He’s close, so close, so gloriously close to what he can already tell is going to be a good, solid, satisfying orgasm, biting down on Louis’s pillow and—

The door unexpectedly opens and Nick frantically pulls at his pants, his trackies, the covers, anything within reach. He sits up, trying his fucking hardest to look like he wasn’t just furiously wanking, but the look on Louis’s face confirms that he’s missed the mark by a country mile.

“What the fuck,” Louis’s saying as he surveys the mess Nick has made of the bed, where he’s pulled Louis’s pillow close and gotten it wet with his saliva. “Hang a fucking sock on the door or something.”

Nick’s face is burning a bright, painful red. “I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

Louis’s voice cracks like something fragile. It hits Nick in the stomach. “Is that my pillow?”

“Lou, I’m so—”

“Shut up,” Louis snaps, his nostrils flaring. “Just shut the fuck up.”

Nick expects him to slam the door behind him, but it shuts with a quiet click instead, like Louis doesn’t even care enough to make a scene.

Nick’s still hard — humiliatingly, desperately so — but he leans forward to hide his face in his hands and tries to breathe through the hysteria bubbling in his chest. Then something in him gives out and he’s crying and he can’t stop.

 

—

 

Nick doesn’t leave his bedroom all night. No one comes to get him for dinner, either. He wonders if Louis’s said something about what he walked in on or if they’ve heard him sobbing through the walls. It’s become abundantly clear that Louis still thinks he’s a piece of shit, so maybe it’s been some dreadful combination of both.

There’s a knock on his door once he’s calmed down again and is just lying there, feeling hollowed out and useless and stupid and ashamed. He wipes his face on the sweater he’s been crying into and calls, “Yeah?”

Harry ducks inside with a plate of food and a glass of juice. He takes a seat on the bed and looks at Nick like he’s something pitiful. “Feeling better?” he asks. “Sounds like you needed a good cry.”

Nick sniffles, looking at the ceiling because he can’t bear the alternative. “God. Does everyone know?”

“They all know you’ve had a rough week,” Harry says kindly, reaching for Nick’s hand and squeezing tight. Nick hasn’t washed his hands since the debacle earlier, but somehow he doesn’t think Harry would even mind if he knew. “Don’t worry about everyone else.”

Nick needs to know, though. “Did Louis say something just now?”

Harry frowns. “Just now? No, nothing.”

“I miss him,” Nick blurts helplessly. He fucking hates that it’s true, but he does. He’s all cried out, all systems down, defense mechanisms shot straight to hell. He might as well be honest about this, for once in his life. “I miss him and I hate it.”

“I know, babe,” Harry sighs. “He’s a prick though, yeah? You deserve better than some asshole who doesn’t recognise how special you are.”

Nick takes a fortifying breath, meeting his eyes. “What the hell possessed you to put us in a room together, then?”

Harry sits back, his mouth dropping open. “Wait,” he whispers. “Are we not talking about Elliott?”

Shame coils itself tight in Nick’s belly. Fuck, he’d thought Harry had figured this out. He sits up, reaching for him. “Fuck, Harry, you can’t—”

“Louis,” Harry says, sitting upright. He looks like he’s just had his mind blown. Fuck, Nick hates the intensity of his reaction. He thought they were on the same page about this. “ _Still?_ ”

“He has a girlfriend and he can’t fucking stand me,” Nick insists, needing to contain this before it becomes a Thing. “It’s fine. It doesn’t matter.”

Harry looks at him for a long moment, like he’s debating what to say. In the end, he sighs, “He doesn’t, though, they broke up a while back. Shit, Nick, he’s uh. He’s been talking about you.”

“Talking about me,” Nick repeats, blindsided. “What?”

“I don’t…” Harry lets out a long, slow breath. “I just didn’t realise it was you he was talking about.”

Again, “What?”

“Come and have a drink, yeah?” Harry cheerfully pats his thigh, conversation topic apparently changed. “We’re about to play that game where you tape a sanitary towel onto your forehead with a celebrity’s name on it.”

Nick shakes his head, trying and failing to keep up. “A what, sorry?”

“Like a sanitary pad with like, The Queen or Dumbledore or, I don’t know, Ricky Martin, and then you have to ask questions and work out who you are. Come on, it’ll be fun.”

Nick sits up and lets Harry pull him into a long, tight hug. He wants to say something stupid and sentimental like _I love you,_ but he knows he doesn’t need to.

When he follows Harry into the living room, the lights hurt his bloodshot eyes. Louis’s got a sanitary towel on his forehead with _Monica Lewinsky_ scribbled in black Sharpie across it. He stares resolutely into his glass of beer and doesn’t look up.

“Alright, Grimmy?” Niall asks, waving a pad at him. He’s got _Piers Morgan_ on his forehead and a warm smile on his face. “I’ve got the perfect one for you right here.”

“Yeah, thanks.” Nick sits gingerly down between Perrie ( _That Dude from Creed_ ) and Liam ( _Virgin Mary_ ). Perrie wraps an arm around his waist and gives him a peck on the cheek. Harry gets him a glass of wine before Iggy ( _Vanilla Ice_ ) tapes a pad to Harry’s head bearing _Harry Styles_.

 

—

 

They drink and play guitar and play more games (Nick’s sanitary towel read _Lil’ Kim_ in the end), until Liam announces that the clouds have finally shifted and something technical about solar flares that Nick doesn’t catch and that it’s time for another excruciating, pointless round of _stare at the sky for hours, waiting for exactly nothing to happen_.

Nick is keen to get his duties out of the way quickly and needs a fag anyway. As he’s lacing up his boots, Louis’s silly socks slip into a pair of shoes beside his own. Louis, who Nick’s literally never seen wear a pair of socks in the entire time they’ve known each other, apparently owns socks with bumblebees printed all over them.

Nick’s fingers freeze on his shoelaces. His voice is still all nasal from crying earlier; he knows Louis can hear it. “I can take the next shift, if you’d like. You can head out with someone else.”

Louis just says, “Don’t be a wanker,” and keeps dressing.

They’re quiet when they head out, the howl of the wind and the crunching of snow beneath their boots the only sounds in the world. Nick holds their drink glasses while Louis lights up and then passes them over so he can light his own. It’s cold as arse, seemingly colder than it’s been any other night. The sky is clear black again, stars twinkling like diamonds above them and snow like spilt glitter at their feet.

Nick wants to say things, apologise perhaps, but the words stick in his throat. “I’m sorry I still want you after all this time,” feels like a thing that might get Louis to empty his glass in Nick’s face, or maybe probably punch him. Even if he follows it with, “I didn’t even know I still did.”

“Cold,” Louis says, exhaling smoke through his nose.

It’s as good a conversation topic as any, Nick supposes. “We’re, like, five minutes from the North Pole, I’m pretty sure. I hope you’re keeping an eye out for polar bears.”

“There aren’t any on the mainland,” Louis says matter-of-factly, before clarifying, in response to Nick’s scoff, “Iggy says they’re all on some island off the coast.”

That doesn’t really settle Nick’s nerves. “They can still swim onshore, though, can’t they? I’ve seen them on the telly.”

“Fucked if I know,” Louis says, an edge of laughter to his voice. Nick doesn’t think he’s ever heard him laugh when it’s been just the two of them before. It’s strange. Louis clears his throat and turns his body stiffly towards him. “Look, about earlier…”

Nick flinches. “Don’t. Please don’t.”

Louis considers Nick for a few moments, before raising his own glass. There isn’t much left in it. “Never have I ever snogged a bloke.”

Nick frowns, meeting his eyes. “What, you want me to drink?”

Louis clinks his own glass against the one in Nick’s fist. He’s looking at Nick as he drinks what’s left, and then he inexplicably throws his glass over his shoulder. It lands quietly in a mound of snow.

Nick’s breath catches in his throat. “Okay?”

“Last year, when you asked if I wanted to...”

The look on Louis’s face, whatever it is, makes Nick’s stomach drop. “What are you talking about?”

“I did want to,” Louis says, flicking his fag aside. Pants on lampshades, crisps in the bed and now casual littering; this boy is a fucking menace. “I just didn’t know how.”

Louis’s frozen hands slip between Nick’s scarf and his skin, tilting his mouth down to brush against Louis’s. His eyes are open, his kiss cautious. Nick closes his eyes and lets it happen, not moving lest he ruin everything, his hands too scared to reach for him again after all this time.

He _wants_ , is the thing. He always wants too much and too fast and too hard and then it just ends up hurting.

Louis pulls back, bumping his cold nose against Nick’s. “Okay?”

Nick exhales sharply, his gloved fingers coming up to cup Louis’s jaw. He kisses him back before he loses his nerve, kisses him so hard it makes him dizzy. Louis whimpers into his mouth, going all soft and pliant against him, letting Nick lose himself until he inexplicably jerks back. There’s alarm in his voice when he chants, “Nick, Nick, Nick, shit, look—”

Nick’s eyes fly open to see that the sky’s imploded above them, green and gold and purple waves of color dancing across the black, lighting everything up around them. It’s like nothing he’s ever seen before. It’s all over the sky. It’s almost like he can hear it.

“Holy shit,” Nick says, suddenly overcome. This is what it feels like to have the Earth under his feet and Heaven above him and _Louis_ flush against him. “Is that...”

“Lights,” Louis confirms in an excited rush, before taking off at a run towards the cabin, shouting “Lights! Lights! Lights!”

Nick stands exactly where Louis left him, shell shocked polar bear bait at the end of the world. He chances a glance back at the cabin and catches a half-dressed Liam face planting into a bank of snow in his rush to get outside. Harry comes barrelling after him, pulling a beanie over his head and whooping when he sees the sky.

When Louis meets Nick’s eyes over the throng of people spilling out of the cabin, Nick... kind of forgets there was ever anything else to look at.

 

—

 

“Do you like Thai food?”

Nick pulls off Louis’s cock with a wet pop, frowning up at him, because 1) What? and also 2) Who in their right mind doesn’t like Thai food? but mostly 1) _What?_ “I’m sorry,” Nick says, gracefully wiping saliva from his chin. “This blowjob somehow failing to hold your interest? I could get you a magazine instead.”

“No, I just.” Louis reaches down to brush Nick’s wilted quiff out of his face. His cheeks are beautifully flushed, his eyes dark and lust-blown and meeting Nick’s. “I know a place.”

Nick raises an eyebrow. His throat feels inconveniently tight, considering what he was just in the middle of. “...is that place Thailand?”

Louis groans. “You’re such an utter fucking wanker, I swear to God. No, it’s in London.”

Nick ducks his head to hide his blush against Louis’s thigh. He squeezes his fist around Louis’s cock, feels it thick and hard and slick in his fist. “Oh,” he says eloquently, nuzzling Louis’s pubes. “I happen to live there, so.”

“So,” Louis repeats, letting the question hang unasked and unanswered in the air between them. He bends his leg at the knee, giving Nick better access. _Fuck,_ Nick wants to eat him out, get his tongue and fingers inside him and work him into a shuddering mess. “I’ve got lube in my bag. Might have condoms, too, not sure.”

Nick tears his eyes away to review the debris left by whatever exploded on Louis’s side of the room. The only reason Nick’s not yet cordoned his side of the room off is that BIOHAZARD ZONE - DO NOT CROSS tape is surprisingly hard to come by at the literal ends of the Earth. “Unfortunately, I think your bag’s been lost forever in the vortex of filth you’ve created over there.”

“Nick,” Louis says impatiently, sitting up and pushing at Nick until they’re face to-face. “I want you to fuck me, okay?” He leans in to kiss him, slow and tentative and like it might maybe mean something, even after all this time. “Shut up about everything else.”

The thought of licking pad thai sauce off of Louis’s lips makes Nick’s chest feel impossibly tight. “Yeah,” he says, pressing his forehead against Louis’s. “I’m not risking life and limb for lubricant, though. You go, I’ll hold a flashlight for you and notify your parents if you perish on the way.”

“You’re an utter fucking wanker,” Louis sighs, and then he kisses him again, his lips lingering for so long that Nick forgets to breathe.

It’s some time later, hours maybe, when Nick’s moving slowly inside of him, holding Louis together as he falls to a million, beautiful pieces beneath him, that Nick has to cover Louis’s gasping mouth with his palm and whisper, “Quiet, love. They’ll hear us.”

Louis unceremoniously shoves his hand off, fisting one hand in Nick’s hair as he spreads his legs even wider for him. He’s so, so close, flushed and wild-eyed and beautiful. “Don’t care,” he moans, his teeth catching on Nick’s bottom lip when Nick gets him _just_ right. “Let them.”

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr post](http://jiksax.tumblr.com/post/158794979104/press-my-face-against-the-clouds)
> 
>  
> 
> Title from a ["Ties" by Slow Skies](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRDs0JtkNPo). Also mentioned, two songs by Norwegian acts: ["Ambitions" by Donkeyboy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8ek0Q24-oE) and ["I Went Too Far" by Aurora](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eT6dLJd3rYk).
> 
> [tumblr](http://jiksax.tumblr.com/) | [twitter](https://twitter.com/jiksax) | [email](mailto:ifckfairies@gmail.com?Subject=Hey%20girl)  
> 


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